


Tedious Walk

by ReminiscentLullaby



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Holding Hands, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26075848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReminiscentLullaby/pseuds/ReminiscentLullaby
Summary: After an akuma attack, Gabriel and Nathalie are exhausted. They just need a break.
Relationships: Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58
Collections: GabeNath Book Club and Art Club Server





	Tedious Walk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hiiraeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiiraeth/gifts).



> I wrote this sheerly because I had the spontaneous urge to see Gabriel and Nathalie laying down next to each other. I otherwise don't know why it exists, but enjoy!

It didn’t seem very fair to Gabriel that after this evening’s akuma attack, he found himself feeling so irresistibly exhausted that he could think to nothing else but lay down in a first floor guest bedroom and _rest_ for a few minutes. 

He’d thought about it, during those several seconds he spent floating through the dark during his ride on the lift from the lair to his soon-to-be neglected atelier, that his enemy, Ladybug had the power to wipe away the deepest marks of battle from existence: toppled buildings, torn up asphalt, mangled minds and injured bodies, depending on the type of havoc that day’s akuma had been built to wreak. A city that may have been turned on its head in a matter of hours would always be restored completely to normalcy in as many seconds. If it wasn’t so easy, if his mess actually took some time to clean up, perhaps he would feel a lot less irritated right now about the way his bones felt as though they’d tripled in weight and slowed his movements to an ungraceful snail’s pace. At least he’d have something to show for it, but instead, Ladybug’s miracle cure stripped Paris entirely of his threat and somehow, some way, for some utterly unknown reason, failed to ease _him_ of the weariness using his own power had wrought.

He thought about it some more as he turned to Nathalie right at his side, who, just like him, was fighting the pull of fatigue that always followed a transformation and the resulting demoralizing defeat. She was used to such a sequence of events, but it took him until now, while he was already leading her some place to rest, to understand just how senseless this was. Why couldn’t the miracle cure undo the damage that had been caused by her miraculous in the time she had been transformed? Why did she weaken, further and further when there was a power being used almost every day that should have been able to help her, should have been able to at least slow this pain, slow this steady downfall? The miraculous was fixed, but she wasn’t yet – though she sure tended to act like she was at times.

Like now, as he was bringing her down the hall to that guest bedroom, while she was insisting that they had work to finish and that she had no time to get off her feet, even if was just for the few minutes Gabriel could usually always manage to get her to agree to. But Gabriel was over halfway to the room now, and it would have been far more effort to turn around and return to the atelier, so instead, he glanced at her and said,

“But I am tired, Nathalie.”

He was exhausted. And he didn’t know why it was today of all days that he – who had failed to achieve a restful night of sleep in over half a year and even dreaded returning to his own room in the dead of night for fear of so uncompromising a silence and a darkness – couldn’t bring himself to stay standing for longer than necessary this evening. Nathalie blinked at him. She didn’t understand either, why only now a sentence like that was coming out of his mouth, or why he was saying it while he dragged her along, one hand trailing against her lower back. In an effort to make any sort of sense out of this, he told himself it was to take her mind off of her own unsteadiness, off of the burning in her throat, the lightness in her head, because he too was in need of some relief. 

He opened the door, and he paused there, ushering her inside, and when she’d finally opened several paces of distance between them, she turned around to face him and she looked at him with this expression she used to make at the very beginning of all this madness, when he was less inclined to be comforted. Her eyes went round under a delicate brow softening with concern and earnest. And her lips puckered, just slightly, just enough so that it appeared like she was wanting to say something but holding the words at the front of her mouth in hopes he might ask to hear them. Gabriel didn’t ask. He didn’t want that countenance to fade. He didn’t want the moment to pass, of total stillness, of almost-peace, of two people purely knowing the burden the other carried on their shoulders and could only sigh away most of the time.

He stared back at her, and he leaned in the doorframe, and he thought about the stairs he had to climb to reach his own room and the empty space on the other side of the bed, an empty space that was so empty that its emptiness began to lose meaning.

He took a sharp breath

“Nathalie,” he murmured.

“Yes, sir?” she asked quietly.

But he didn’t reply – partially because he hadn’t a clue how to say what it was he was thinking that moment, but also because her eyes unfocused. Gabriel’s heart lurched, the way it always did when a wave of dizziness passed and she tilted off balance. He advanced and wrapped an arm around her waist before she would hit the floor.

“Oh,” she sighed, eyelids fluttering. “Sir…”

“ _Shh_.” He brought her the rest of the way to the bed and wordlessly removed her shoes as she sat down. “Just – rest. Something about today…”

“Do you think you might need a break, sir?” she asked him gently.

“I’ll take a break now.”

“No, I mean –” But she cut herself off with a wince of doubt the moment he’s eyes flickered up. In a softer tone, sheepish tone, she asked, “It gets tedious, doesn’t it?”

“Tedious,” he repeated. Mulling this over, he straightened himself and adjusted the pillows. One would hardly think to call supervillainy tedious, and Gabriel certainly never had.

Nathalie laid down, gazed up at the ceiling. “I just think that would be worse than anything at this point,” she said. “Doing this long enough to feel plain tired. To be willing to walk to the ends of the earth for something and get…sick of it.”

Gabriel’s hand found hers, and as his fingers wrapped around her knuckles, she turned towards him, face pale in the lamplight.

“I’m going to try not to get sick of it,” she told him. “If I walk, I’m going to walk all the way there, and all the way back, and I’ll be happy to do so.” She her lips curled weakly, her exhaustion dulling what would have been a bright and lovely smile.

“Nathalie, my dear,” he said.

“But this has been so hard for you,” she went on. “The toll that this must take, that you must keep hidden, it must be incredible. You tell me I’ve made a dangerous habit of underplaying my illness, but I worry about you too.” Her blue stare glimmered, a pair of sharply cut gems. “You deserve a break, sir. To rest. So, rest.”

Gabriel squeezed her hand, his heart’s mellow pulse quickening while he took in the depth of her words. His eyes drifted from her visage to the pillows beside her head, and the side of the bed that had always been left vacant whenever she slept here. Exhaling deeply, he released her and drifted around.

“Sir,” she said, “What are you doing?”

“I’ll rest, Nathalie, do not worry.” Gabriel kicked off his shoes. He folded his glasses and set them on the bedside table before laying down beside her, atop to covers as she was, head propped up as hers was, to see her more clearly. Her eyes stretched wide in surprise, but she did not move. “But I will not do so to leave you alone to walk.”

“Gabriel.”

“Do you mind?”

“N-no. Not at all.”

“I just need a few minutes.” He shut his eyes. “And then we’ll keep walking.”

He was laying close enough that their arms touched. Both laid perfectly still but for the calm rise and fall of breath, until Gabriel twitched his hand, brushing against her fingertips. Like magnetism drew them together, their fingers slowly, slowly interlocked, and when they both awoke under the deep orange light of setting sun, they were still holding on.


End file.
